As computers become more powerful, and robots not only more mobile, adaptable and efficient but also more anthropomorphic, and prosthetics become more advanced, to the point where runners with artificial legs have to compete in separate events because their speeds are much higher and photographers and snipers pay top dollar to have artificial eyes implanted, we will reach a point of convergence. We won’t reach it all at once, but I’m talking decades rather than centuries, and certainly less the eons.
There will be interim stages, where we see more and more gradations. “I’m not a cyborg, I’ve just got a few enhancements” or “I’ve dated a few robots, but I wouldn’t marry one.” And even this will shift over time, with each generation being more and more inclined toward the mechanical.
Some people are saying this is a major stage in our evolution. I think it’s even a level higher than that. This is the evolution of evolution. It has taken us 3.5 billion years to evolve from single celled organisms up to the state we are now which, although our collective stupidity is sometimes overwhelming, sometimes comical, is still a pretty amazing thing. We are not only self aware, we are capable of imagining what does not exist and bringing it into existence. We have designed clothing, and vehicles, which serve as exoskeletons and allow us to survive in totally alien environments; under the sea and in outer space.
But our actual evolution has been haphazard, random.
No more. This is a directed change, and it will happen at our direction, and at our speed. Compared to the previous 3.5 billion years, it will be the blink of an eye.
And the next phase will happen even faster.